Paris à l'arraché. Jacques Villeglé et l'art urbain

On the occasion of the centenary of Jacques Villeglé's birth (27 March 1926, Quimper – 6 June 2022, Paris), the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris presents the exhibition "Paris à l'arraché. Jacques Villeglé et l'art urbain".

A major artist on the French scene, Jacques Villeglé developed a unique approach characterised by the collection of posters from urban spaces.

Through these fragments torn from the walls of Paris, he transforms the ephemeral traces of the city into a unique visual language, both poetic and documentary. His prolific work invites discovery of the city's history through lacerated posters or graphic signs that he recomposes.

It also allows exploration of his links with the multiple expressions of contemporary urban art. The exhibition is organised as a journey through structured ensembles based on Jacques Villeglé's vision, as gathered in his texts.

His works are juxtaposed with photographs, sound archives, music, film excerpts, interviews and testimonies, including many previously unseen documents. The exhibition focuses on his practice, situated at the crossroads of poetry and urban archaeology.

For him, Paris is an open-air workshop, where every wall holds a work in progress.

Villeglé's wanderings invite visitors to traverse four neighbourhoods where he particularly collected, from Porte Maillot to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, passing through the Montparnasse district and finally the Marais.

The exhibition also reveals the historical dimension of Villeglé's work, which captures true snapshots of the urban space of an era.

These displays evoke the political context, struggles and mobilisations, local or national elections: the streets of Paris reflect a society undergoing multiple upheavals.